Last week, I delivered the opening conference keynote address for an insurance association at The Mirage Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The topic was customer service and one of the behaviors I highlighted was to express genuine interest in your customers by, among other things, engaging them with questions.

After my presentation, one of the attendees asked how to express genuine interest in a customer when you have a line of other customers waiting to be served—either in person or on the phone.

That’s a fair question.

Waiting customers may perceive employees (or other customers) to be insensitive when an interaction continues beyond that which is deemed appropriate. If you’ve ever been exasperated while waiting to be acknowledged in such a situation, then you know what I mean.

Even so, it is possible to deliver exceptional customer service by expressing genuine interest, using appropriate humor, and conveying authentic enthusiasm—even when facing a long line of waiting customers.

As I stood in the taxicab line in front of the Mirage later that morning, for example, I observed a doorman named Folk doing a masterful job of modeling these customer service behaviors while remaining attentive to the fact that there was a continuous line of waiting customers.

As I progressed closer to the front of the cab line, I observed him interacting playfully with his guests and engaging them with short questions and an infectious smile.

As the guest ahead of me was about to get into her cab, Folk put his hand up and said, “Give me a high-five!”

She high-fived him and then positioned the palm of her hand near her pocket and said, “Down low.”

Both laughed as Folk reciprocated with a low-five before securing her in the backseat of the cab and closing her door.

As soon as that cab pulled away, Folk whistled for the next cab in line at the cab stand to pull forward. Even his whistle was different and reflected his unique style and flare.

As he took my suitcase, he asked, “Are you an NFL fan?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “In the Detroit game, catch or no-catch?”

He was referring to a controversial incomplete pass ruling that went against the Detroit Lions in their loss to the Chicago Bears the previous Sunday.

I told him that I’d heard some of the chatter but had not seen the play so I really couldn’t comment.

Before closing my door, Folk asked, “Where are you from?”

I said, “Denver.”

Smiling, he said, “Oh, a Broncos fan! Come back and see us!”

He then turned his attention to the next pair of guests in line to express genuine interest and perhaps use a bit of appropriate humor, while conveying authentic enthusiasm for serving others.

Not only did Folk make his guests smile, he made many lasting positive impressions—the kind that turn passive, disaffected customers into engaged promoters like me who are responsible for 80-90% of the positive word-of-mouth about a company or brand, are the least price-sensitive, and tend to repurchase again and again and again…

And that’s no mirage.

Let’s do a word association. You know how these work: I’ll name a word and you, off the top of your head, identify a set of words that you associate with that word. Ready?

The first word is indifference. What words immediately come to mind?

The second word is enthusiasm. What words immediately come to mind?

When I perform this activity at my seminars, participants’ associations with “indifference” are words like: apathy, don’t care, unimportant, don’t matter, etc. and their associations with “enthusiasm” are words like: lively, energetic, smile, radiant, etc.

Consider this statistic: 68 percent of customers quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference towards them as customers.

In other words, lots of customers feel as though employees are apathetic and don’t care, and that, as customers, they are unimportant and don’t matter to the company.

What could be leading customers to feel this way? Everyone’s experience is unique but definitely interpersonal communication effects this perception. When employees don’t smile, make eye contact, or add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers notice.

But here’s the good news: When employees do smile, make eye contact, and add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers recognize that too. And because it’s a change from the indifferent service that most customers have come to expect, it stands out as refreshing, unique, and memorable.

Recently, I was reading the book Love Your Patients by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. and came across the following passage:

“Everyone is important. Every person you meet is very, very important. Every patient’s problem, every concern, every appointment, every minute is very, very important. Everything is important to someone. All we need do is recognize that importance. Enthusiasm is the easiest way for our patients to know that they are important.

When we act with enthusiasm, our patients will know that we truly take them seriously. We must ‘get into it.’ Many of the techniques and suggestions (referenced above) show our enthusiasm: We nod our head, make eye contact, and listen intently. We do these things to show our patients that they are our biggest concern.

It does not matter how many other more urgent problems we have to deal with. It does not matter that our last patient and our next patient are dying. What matters is, while we are with this patient, we are not distracted, bored, uninterested or unconcerned…

The best ways to show our enthusiasm are to thank our patients, to ask some non-healthcare questions about them, and to let them know that we are glad to see them…

Someone may criticize this view. They may say small talk distracts us from real patient care. They are wrong. Our business is people. The more we know about our patients, the better we can serve them.”

Many job roles, regardless of industry, become process-focused and routine over time. Service providers systematically go about their tasks and may unwittingly convey indifference towards the customers they serve.

Always look for opportunities to convey authentic enthusiasm: smile, make eye contact, add enthusiasm to your voice, ask engaging, non-routine questions and let your customers know that you’re genuinely happy to serve them.

In doing so, you will be expressing your uniqueness by adding personality to an otherwise routine and indifferent transaction. Best of all, you will be seen by customers as memorable—which certainly beats the alternative.

Conveying authentic enthusiasm that adds a bit of a spark to an otherwise predictable transaction is an effective way for employees to express their uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says that, “Any job is twenty percent knowledge and eighty percent interpersonal skills.” Consider how one’s authentic enthusiasm for serving customers influences his or her interpersonal skills.

Customers can easily detect whether or not someone is genuinely interested in serving them. The well-known UCLA communications study suggests that 55 percent of one’s trust and believability comes from the visual effect—her body language. According to the study, 38 percent comes from the vocal effect (i.e., vocal tone, inflection), and only 7 percent is attributed to the verbal effect (i.e., chosen words of speech).

The best illustration of conveying authentic enthusiasm that I’ve come across lately comes from the book, Flipping The Switch by John G. Miller, an expert in Personal Accountability and also author of the best selling book, QBQ! As you read the story below, ask yourself, “How does Larry’s authentic enthusiasm for serving customers influence his interpersonal skills—the way he interacts and communicates with travelers?”

It was 10 P.M. in Albuquerque, and my flight home to Tucson through Phoenix had been delayed due to bad weather. My new estimated time of arrival was 2 A.M. But things quickly improved, thanks to an airport security officer named Larry. He will forever raise the bar for TSA officers at airports everywhere!

Larry was directing passengers to several lines for baggage X-ray and security checks. What was totally surprising, however, was his enthusiastic approach to the job. Instead of mechanically pointing travelers to line number one or two, Larry proudly introduced himself to thirty or so exhausted passengers by shouting, “Good evening, everyone, my name is Larry. I’ll be helping you through security tonight. And just so you all know, it’s my birthday!”

Well, I couldn’t contain myself after seeing and feeling his enthusiasm, so I shouted back, “Happy birthday, Larry!” He giggled and said, “It’s not really my birthday, I just love the attention!” Then, like a maître d’ in a fine restaurant, he asked the folks next in line, “How many in your party?”

They replied, “Three.”

He responded, “Smoking or non?”

Meanwhile, a new line had been opened. As he waved several people into it, he quoted the movie Finding Nemo by chanting, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!” Everyone cracked up! By now, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how Larry’s attitude buoyed so many weary travelers. Then to the group behind me he declared, “Hi, everyone! I’m Larry!” And like a group attending a self-help seminar, the crowd enthusiastically replied in unison, “Hi, Larry!” As they moved toward the scanners, he joyfully delivered their instructions. I continued on to my gate as Larry’s cheerful voice faded into the background.

And the best part was watching the other TSA officers working nearby. They were smiling from a distance, wanting to have as much fun as Larry—but not knowing how. What a shame that the only thing holding any of us back from being more like Larry is…ourselves!

Larry is genuinely filled with enthusiasm and authentically conveys this enthusiasm to travelers in a way that is unique, perhaps even singular, and matches his style and personality. Authentic enthusiasm may be animated or may be reserved, but it will be real.

How do you express your enthusiasm for serving others?

There is a restaurant in my neighborhood named Wine Experience Café & World Cellar. This restaurant is unique in that two-thirds of the space is used as a bar area and dining room and the other third is used as a liquor and wine store.

The owner, Eldon Larson, had a career in wine sales prior to opening Wine Experience Café two years ago. His knowledge of wines, grapes, regions, etc. is extensive and he’s always willing to share and educate in order to elevate a guest’s meal or wine purchase from a transaction to—as the restaurant’s name implies—an experience!

Earlier this year, I took a friend of mine out to dinner for his birthday at Eldon’s restaurant and Eldon stopped by our table to check-in with us regarding the quality of the food and service. Sensing by our questions that we were especially interested in wine, Eldon pulled up a chair and asked our server to bring over a flight of three unique wines. If you’re not familiar with wine flights, they are simply a variety of wines served as smaller, perhaps three-ounce, pours.

Eldon expertly paired the wines with the food we’d ordered. When they arrived at the table, Eldon led us in tasting the wines. He asked questions of us pertaining to what we noticed in the colors of the wines, the scents we were picking up when nosing the wines, and what tastes we were detecting when sipping the wines. He explained the acidity, the texture, and the finish of the wines and, again, moved the meal from transactional to experiential.

After Eldon had left our table, another diner commented, “You two must be pretty important for the owner to spend so much time at your table.” Shawn and I laughed. Then she said knowingly, “Wait until you get the bill.”

And you know what? She was right. Eldon doesn’t give wine away. He sells wine. But more than that, he fulfills experiences. If our number one priority had been price, we wouldn’t have been at Wine Experience Café to begin with. Yes, people are looking for value (in any economy) but not at the expense of fulfilling an experience.

Let’s fast-forward four weeks or so to last week when I stopped by the retail side of the establishment to inquire about a bottle of wine, Earthquake Cabernet. Although Eldon did not stock the wine, he took the time to look the bottle up and told me that he would place a call to his distributor to find out whether or not he could get it in the store.

A couple of days later I received a voice mail from Eldon saying that the wine had arrived. My first thought was, “Oh, I didn’t intend for him to order a bottle. I only intended for him to see if it was available and, if so, at what price?”

Later that day I arrived at the store to pick up the bottle of Earthquake Cabernet, hoping that it was closer to $20 than $40. When I arrived, Eldon greeted me with, “I’ve got your case of Earthquake right here.”

I said, “Case?”

He said, “Yes. You did want a case didn’t you?”

Here is where the relationship that Eldon had been building over time by expressing genuine interest in me as a customer, sharing unique knowledge about wines, and conveying authentic enthusiasm for food and wine, really began to pay off for him.

I said, “I’m not even sure of the per bottle price. How much is it?”

Eldon said, “I was able to get you a really good price from the distributor: $24 per bottle. I actually hired him into the business many years ago.”

My response: “Sold!”

The moral of the story is that, in the absence of the relationship that Eldon had forged, I almost certainly would have said, “Hey, I never authorized ordering the case. I was only inquiring as to whether or not the wine was available and, if so, at what price. My budget is $20 for wine, so that wine’s too pricey anyway.”

In that situation, the vendor is stuck carrying another $288 worth of obscure inventory and depending on how the misunderstanding is handled, could jeopardize future business with the customer. Think about it, we’ve all been in similar situations before. How you chose to proceed as a customer likely hinged on the relationship you had with the vendor.

Memorable service that is customer-focused fulfills experiences, builds relationships, and creates loyal customers who are less price-sensitive, recommend your business to others, and tend to repurchase products and services.

Transactional service that is process-focused and does not add value or build customer relationships, however, does none of these things.

Here’s a true story I received from my mom earlier this month:

Steven, I just had to tell you about a couple of little girls from a local elementary school who came to our office to sell candy for their fundraiser.

One girl was kind of shy and didn’t say two words.  The other one, small but confident, was as memorable as any little salesperson you ever met.  They came in the door and several of us who had seen their school bus pull up went to the reception area to see what was going on.

They came in with their rather large bags filled with boxes of candy.  The small girl introduced them, noted the school they represented, and asked if we would buy candy for their fundraiser.  One of my co-workers said, “I don’t have any money with me today, sorry.”  Not missing a beat, the girl said, “We take checks!”  That was sale number one as the woman made her selection and went off for her checkbook.

Another said, “I’m on a diet and can’t eat candy.”  The girl immediately said, “We take contributions!” and received a $5 bill.  As others came up with excuses, the little girl enthusiastically overcame their objections.  So original and refreshing!

Then she turned to me and I asked what she would win if they sold the most candy.  Her face lit up and she said, “I get to help the special children board their bus to go to camp!”  I bought $20 worth.

Enthusiasm and belief in your cause… amazing how it shines through!

Thanks mom!  And to those readers who might dismiss this example as applying only to $2 fundraiser products, be assured that the same principles apply whether selling candy bars, bottles of wine, hotel rooms, or jet airplanes!  Enthusiasm and belief in your cause sells!

Want more proof?  Read about how Cowbell Sandy’s enthusiasm increased add-on sales by $11.50 per hour at the Paradise Bakery & Café she managed.  Here’s the post.

Conveying authentic enthusiasm that adds a bit of a spark to an otherwise predictable transaction is an effective way to express one’s uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

Three years ago, I ordered an omelet from an omelet maker at a Marriott hotel in Atlanta, GA.  He was wearing an apron that he meticulously pressed an accordion-like pattern into each morning before work.  It was so remarkable that you had to ask him about it.

And the personality that he put into his outstanding uniform carried over to the personality in his service as an omelet maker.  I still recall his name, Ulysses.  Seriously folks, how many of you can recall these types of details from an interaction you had with an omelet maker three years ago?

Ulysses is genuinely filled with enthusiasm and authentically conveys this enthusiasm to customers in a way that is unique, perhaps even singular, and matches his style and personality.

Authentic enthusiasm may be animated or may be reserved, but it will be real.